13: Chapter 12: You Call This Luck?
13: Chapter 12: You Call This Luck?
The echoing crack of the gunshot died away, leaving behind a heavy haze of blue cordite smoke that drifted lazily toward the ceiling exhaust vents.
For a terrifying second, silence clamped down over the central control hub.
No one dared to breathe.
Rain, Chad, Matt, and Alice remained frozen in their defensive postures, their eyes glued to the spot where Chu Feng stood.
They fully expected to see the young man collapse to the steel deck with a fatal entry wound drilled clean through his skull.
But as the bitter smoke cleared, Chu Feng remained standing—completely upright, unblemished, and staring back at Spence with a calm, unreadable intensity.
A collective, shuddering gasp rippled through the room.
“He…
he missed?” Chad muttered, his voice shaking as he stared at the freshly mangled metal gouge on the heavy blast door directly behind Chu Feng.
“How could someone like Spence miss a target standing right in front of him?” “He didn’t miss by accident,” Rain grunted through gritted teeth, her dark eyes narrowing as she cradled her wounded, bleeding forearm.
Her tactical experience immediately sought a logical explanation for the anomaly.
“Spence is a top-tier Umbrella operative with near-perfect marksmanship scores.
That was a calculated warning shot.
He’s trying to break our resolve without wasting ammunition.” Matt wiped a bead of cold sweat from his forehead and exhaled a long, shaky breath.
“Phew…
Thank God it was just a warning.
Chu Feng, don’t push him!
Just play along for now!” In their minds, Rain’s tactical assessment was the only plausible reality.
A veteran soldier and black-ops agent simply did not miss a stationary human target from less than ten feet away.
It had to be a deliberate display of psychological dominance.
However, the man holding the smoking Beretta knew the terrifying truth.
Spence stared at the barrel of his handgun, his knuckles turning chalk-white as his heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped animal.
Cold sweat trickled down the back of his neck.
I didn’t fire a warning shot, Spence thought wildly, his mind spinning in a whirlwind of confusion and denial.
I aimed straight for the bridge of his nose.
I squeezed the trigger cleanly.
I felt the recoil…
So why in the hell did that bullet veer three inches to the left mid-flight?!
He swallowed hard, desperate to rationalize the impossibility.
It has to be the neurotoxin…
The nerve gas the Red Queen flooded the train with must still be affecting my fine motor control and spatial perception.
Dammit, what a waste of a bullet.
Forced to maintain his facade of absolute control, Spence shoved his rising panic deep into his chest.
He cleared his throat, letting out a harsh, rasping laugh to mask his lingering shock.
“That shot was just a courtesy warning, kid,” Spence lied smoothly, stepping forward and re-leveling the gun barrel directly at Chu Feng’s chest.
“My patience is at zero.
Step over to that console and hit the manual override to open the blast door.
Draw those things away from the corridor, or the very next round goes straight through your heart.” The ultimatum hung heavy in the air, cold and lethal.
Alice tensed her posture, readying herself to throw her body in front of Chu Feng to buy him a split second.
Chad lowered his gaze to the floor, unable to watch another civilian get executed.
Yet, facing the deadly bore of a loaded firearm, Chu Feng did not flinch, shrink back, or show even a trace of fear.
Instead, an expression of profound, burning anger flared across his face.
“Open the door for you?” Chu Feng’s voice rang out, vibrating with pure, unadulterated righteous fury.
“I’ve held my tongue and tolerated your garbage long enough!
Up until now, I didn’t care about your corporate espionage, your rivalries, or your greed.
But you have repeatedly smashed through every single baseline of human morality!” Spence blinked, utterly stunned by the sudden, fierce confrontation.
“You slaughtered hundreds of innocent workers and researchers in this facility just to line your own pockets with black-market money!” Chu Feng shouted, his voice bouncing off the cold steel walls.
“And now, to save your own pathetic skin, you want to force us to act as living meat-shields for zombies?
You think having weapons makes you a god?
You think money excuses cold-blooded murder?!” Alice’s jaw dropped in sheer disbelief.
Rain stared as if Chu Feng had grown a second head.
Is this kid entirely insane?!
Chad screamed internally.
He’s lecturing an armed, unhinged killer while staring straight down the barrel of a gun!
“Chu Feng, stop!” Alice yelled, panic lacing her voice.
“Don’t provoke him!
He will kill you!” In their eyes, Chu Feng was acting with noble, tragic recklessness.
Standing up for moral integrity was admirable, but preaching ethics to a cold-blooded traitor while completely unarmed was nothing short of suicidal.
“Shut your mouth!” Spence roared, his face twisting into an ugly, contorted mask of rage.
He was an elite operative, a black-market broker, a man who dealt in death and espionage.
To be openly denounced and lectured by a civilian—a helpless college student—was an unbearable insult.
“You piece of trash!” Spence snarled, his eyes bloodshot with sudden malice.
“You have no right to tell me what to do!
I do what it takes to survive and profit!
You want to talk about morality?
Go preach about it in hell!” Instead of cowering, Chu Feng took a deep, heavy breath.
His eyes locked onto Spence’s face, cold and unyielding.
Raised under the Red Flag, educated on principles of justice, honor, and duty, Chu Feng possessed a moral compass that could not tolerate such absolute evil.
If human nature in this place had fallen into such pitch-black depravity before the world had even collapsed, then he would use his own hands to deliver judgment!
“I’m going to wake you up,” Chu Feng said softly.
THUMP!
Chu Feng’s right boot slammed onto the metal floor deck with explosive force.
He didn’t retreat.
He didn’t dive for cover.
He charged forward!
Clenching his fists, Chu Feng transformed into a blur of motion, rushing straight down the center line of the control room directly toward Spence’s gun barrels!
“Is Chu Feng crazy?!” Matt screamed from the floor.
“He’s charging him bare-handed?!” “Chu Feng, stop!” Alice cried out, reaching her arm out in vain.
Seeing a civilian dare to attack him head-on, Spence let out a frantic, bloodthirsty sneer.
“You want to play the hero, kid?!
DIE!” Having learned from his previous miss, Spence didn’t hesitate.
He locked his elbows, aligned his sights with ruthless military discipline, and pulled the trigger twice in rapid succession!
BANG!
BANG!
Two rapid-fire gunshots detonated almost simultaneously.
One round targeted Chu Feng’s sternum; the other targeted the center of his forehead.
It was a textbook military execution technique designed to guarantee instant death.
At a distance of less than seven feet, no human being on Earth could dodge two high-velocity projectiles traveling faster than the speed of sound.
Alice squeezed her eyes shut, unable to watch the bloody execution.
In that microsecond, as the hot lead rounds tore through the air, Chu Feng’s mind remained razor-sharp.
Deep within his core, the invisible, supernatural energy of his Magneto genetic template erupted!
BZZZZT!
An intense, highly concentrated electromagnetic field radiated outward from Chu Feng’s body.
The moment the metallic jackets of the two spinning bullets entered his personal space, the localized magnetic force seized hold of their iron-copper compositions.
Chu Feng didn’t even slow his stride.
With a subtle flick of his mental intent, he forcibly manipulated the kinetic vectors of both projectiles!
DING!
DING!
A pair of bright, crisp metallic strikes echoed through the room.
To the horrified onlookers, a scene defying every law of physics unfolded before their eyes.
The two lethal bullets, which should have drilled directly into Chu Feng’s torso and skull, suddenly jerked sharply sideways in mid-air as if hitting an invisible wedge!
The rounds ricocheted off course at violent angles, blasting deep gashes into the concrete wall behind Chu Feng before dropping spent onto the floor grating.
Chu Feng emerged through the floating smoke completely unscathed, his momentum building as he closed the distance!
“WHAT?!” Chad shrieked, his eyes bulging out of his head.
“Again?!
HE MISSED AGAIN?!” “How is that even possible?!” Rain gasped, her tactical mind completely shattered by what she was witnessing.
“Three consecutive point-blank shots…
all deflecting off thin air?!” Spence’s composure completely shattered.
The arrogant, cold confidence evaporated from his face, replaced by a sudden, paralyzing terror.
He felt an icy chill crawl up his spine, freezing his blood.
He looked at Chu Feng, who was approaching like an unstoppable phantom, completely immune to gunfire.
“No…
No!
This isn’t real!
DIE!
DIE!
DIE!” Spence shrieked, falling into pure, unadulterated panic.
Losing all tactical discipline and military training, Spence raised both handguns—Rain’s Beretta and Chad’s sidearm—and began frantically pulling both triggers as fast as his fingers could physically move!
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
A deafening storm of gunfire erupted inside the enclosed room.
Muzzle flashes flickered like strobe lights, illuminating Spence’s terrified, sweat-drenched face.
A continuous stream of smoking brass casings rained down onto the metal deck, clattering wildly as Spence dumped both magazines into the narrow corridor, determined to turn the approaching nightmare into a bloody sieve!